BloodHound Community Edition Tutorial: Features, Use Cases, How It Works

TL;DR, What is BloodHound Community Edition?

BloodHound Community Edition is a cybersecurity tool for attack path analysis in Active Directory and Azure. Cybersecurity professionals often struggle to manually find complex privilege escalation paths in large networks. BloodHound helps by turning complex identity relationships into an interactive graph. The graph visualization reveals hidden attack paths an adversary could exploit, showing how they can chain minor permissions to access critical assets like Domain Admins. Using this identity-first view, both red and blue teams can see their true attack surface and focus on fixing the most important risks. SpecterOps developed the tool to give you clear visibility into identity security.

At-A-Glance

• GitHub: https://github.com/SpecterOps/BloodHound

• License: Apache-2.0

• Primary Language: Go

• Stars: 9.6k ⭐

• Last Release: v5.3.3 on March 26, 2024

• Topics/Tags: active-directory, security, pentesting, red-team, blue-team, attack-paths, graph-theory, azure-ad

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Common use cases

1. Red Team Operations: Offensive teams use BloodHound to map privilege escalation paths, helping them quickly find paths from a compromised account to high-value targets like Domain Admins. Using the tool helps ensure precise attack execution during penetration tests and security assessments.

2. Proactive Defense (Blue Team): Defensive security teams can run routine scans to find and fix risky privilege configurations. By visualizing and prioritizing key attack paths, you can harden your environment and reduce the attack surface before an attacker exploits it.

3. Identity Governance Audits: Security and compliance teams use the tool to audit identity and access management policies. You can verify the correct implementation of role-based access controls and find accounts with too many permissions that violate security policies.

4. Least Privilege Enforcement: As part of a zero trust strategy, you can use BloodHound to find and remove unnecessary permissions. The tool's attack path analysis helps pinpoint privilege creep and enforce the principle of least privilege across your hybrid Active Directory environment.

5. Incident Response: During a security incident, your response team can use BloodHound to map potential lateral movement paths from a compromised system or user account. Rapid analysis helps contain the breach and shows the full scope of potential impact.

How does BloodHound Community Edition work?

BloodHound CE uses a three-step process: data collection, analysis, and visualization. First, specialized collectors gather information from your Active Directory and Azure environments. The collected data feeds into a graph database that maps out all object relationships. Finally, a web-based user interface queries the database to show you visual, actionable insights into potential attack paths, helping you find and fix security weaknesses.

• Data Collection: Collectors like SharpHound (C#) and AzureHound use LDAP, Windows APIs, and the Graph API to list users, groups, computers, permissions, and sessions. The collectors then export the information into JSON files that define the nodes and edges of the graph.

• Graph Database Backend: A Neo4j graph database ingests the collected JSON files. The backend transforms the raw data into a graph model, connecting billions of potential relationships and letting you run complex analysis using the Cypher query language.

• Visualization and Analysis: A React-based web interface queries the Neo4j database to visually show attack paths. You can run pre-built or custom queries to find the shortest privilege escalation routes from a compromised starting point to high-value targets.

Core Capabilities:

1. Graph-Based Attack Path Visualization: BloodHound transforms complex Active Directory and Microsoft Entra ID (formerly known as Azure AD) relationships into an interactive graph. The tool visually maps privilege escalation paths, helping you understand how misconfigurations like admin rights, group memberships, and delegation create risk. Graph visualization is a key feature for attack path analysis.

2. Data Collection: The tool's collectors, SharpHound and AzureHound, gather data from hybrid identity environments using standard APIs and LDAP queries. SharpHound focuses on Active Directory, meanwhile AzureHound procures information from Microsoft Entra ID and Azure Resource Manager.. This intel serves as the foundational data for all subsequent security analysis.

3. Cypher Querying: BloodHound includes pre-built Cypher queries to quickly find common misconfigurations, like the shortest paths to Domain Admins or accounts with DCSync rights. You can also write custom queries for specific threat hunting, deep analysis, and custom reports.

4. Hybrid Environment Support: You get clear visibility across both on-premises Active Directory and Entra ID. The tool maps attack paths that cross hybrid identity boundaries, identifying risks tied to synchronized accounts and hybrid-joined devices. This support is important for modern penetration testing.

5. Multi-User Collaboration with RBAC: BloodHound has a multi-tenant architecture with role-based access control, so different teams can securely access and analyze data. Red and blue teams can collaborate by sharing attack paths and coordinating fixes in a controlled environment, which helps improve your organization's defenses.

Limitations

1. Point-in-Time Analysis: The data is a snapshot, not a real-time view. Any changes made after a scan won't be visible until the next data collection, which can create visibility gaps.

2. High-Privilege Data Collection: The collector needs high-level permissions to gather all the necessary data. The collection process itself can be an operational security risk, as attackers could target it.

3. Complexity in Large Environments: In large enterprises, the graph can become very complex and use a lot of resources. Navigating, analyzing, and querying the graph can be difficult without powerful hardware and skilled analysts.

4. Limited Scope Beyond Identity: The tool focuses only on identity and permission-based attack paths in AD and Microsoft Entra ID. It overlooks other attack vectors like software vulnerabilities or network misconfigurations.

5. Requires Specialized Expertise: To get the most out of the tool, you need deep expertise in both graph theory and Active Directory security. This is especially true for writing custom Cypher queries and interpreting complex results.

Getting Started:

Step 1: Clone the repository or download the latest BloodHound Community Edition release.

https://github.com/SpecterOps/BloodHound/releases

Step 2: Ensure Docker and Docker Compose are installed on your system.

Step 3: In the project root directory, start BloodHound using:

docker compose up

Step 4: Wait for all containers (including Postgresql and Neo4j) to initialize.

Step 5: Once running, access the BloodHound web interface at:  http://localhost:8080

Step 6: Follow the on-screen setup instructions to create your administrator account and begin using BloodHound.

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